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Sunday, September 2, 2012

Earl King - Trick Bag

In the world of the Blues the name of “King” is highly respected.
Most fans associate the surname with the obvious “Big Three,” Albert, B.B. and
Freddie. But in New Orleans, the residents know there is a fourth that deserves
his place alongside these three: Earl King.

Earl King was more than just a musician. He was a
renaissance man. During his nearly five decade career, he wore many hats:
guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, producer, sideman, arranger and mentor. He was
prolific in his output, perhaps only rivaled by Allen Toussaint for
recognizable material. His songs have been covered by the likes of Fats Domino,
Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Meters, Johnny Adams, Professor Longhair
and many more. And unlike many other artists of his generation, he profited
from the royalties gained by those who covered his songs as he had wisely
retained the copyrights to his work.

He was born in New Orleans as Earl Silas Johnson on
February 6, 1934. Raised in the city’s Irish Channel neighborhood, his father
was a Blues pianist who was a close acquaintance with the locally renowned Tuts
Washington. But Earl’s father died when he was still quite young and he was
raised in a single-parent home by his mother, a heavy-set woman known
affectionately as “Big Chief.”

Earl’s musical life began in the family church. He
participated in the choir singing Gospel. But one day while walking through the
neighborhood he heard the guitar playing of Smiley Lewis emanating from a bar.
The music enchanted him and he sought means to express his singing outside of
the church.

Pianist Huey Smith heard the teenager sing and
decided to hire him for his band. Needing another vocalist and musician, he
convinced Earl to take up the guitar. The band began to work steadily at now
legendary Crescent City clubs such as The Tiajuana and The Dew Drop Inn. Many
of the city’s future R&B stars found their start in these clubs and it was
the extraordinary guitarist Eddie Jones, better known as Guitar Slim, who
captured Earl’s eye and ears. He began to style his own playing after Slim and
became so adept at mimicking his playing, he was hired to fill in for the
guitarist on several dates when Slim was hospitalized. But under the name of
Guitar Slim to unsuspecting audiences.

In 1953, Earl earned the opportunity to record for
the Savoy label. On June 1st, he laid the tracks to the song “Have You Gone
Crazy,” with accompaniment by Huey Smith on piano and Lee Allen on saxophone.
Though the song did not produce much fanfare, it was the beginning to a
lifetime of recording and studio work.

The next year, Earl found himself in the studio
again. This time for Art Rupe’s Specialty Records. He had three sessions for
the label, which included a regional hit with the song “A Mother’s Love,” a
song that very closely had the flavor of Guitar Slim in its sound. But perhaps
the most significant aspect of his short stay at Specialty was due to a typo
when his first release for them came out. Given the nickname King Earl by Rupe,
the printers mistakenly transposed the name to read Earl King and the name was
there for the remainder of his life.

1955 found Earl King with yet another label; this
time it was Johnny Vincent’s Ace Records. He recorded a string of well-received
numbers that included tunes such as “Well O Well O Well O Baby” and “ Weary
Silent Nights,” but it was the release of “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights” that
made Earl King a national recording star. The song reached the Top Ten on
Billboard’s R&B charts and reportedly sold over 250,000 copies. Since its
initial release, the song has been covered numerous times, by artists ranging
from Hank Ballard and Ann Cole to Johnny “Guitar” Watson. Unfortunately, the
song may have even done better for King had it not been for Watson’s version,
which was put on the market shortly following King’s own, taking away sales
from the original’s pace.

By 1960, Earl King had once again relocated to
another record label, working with the incredible songwriter/producer Dave
Bartholomew at Cosimo Matassa’s Imperial Records. While with Imperial, King
began focusing on more than just songwriting and performing. He worked as an
arranger and producer for the label, too. Among the artists under his control
were Huey Smith, Roland Stone and Jimmy Clanton. In fact, King claimed that he
was responsible for the production of Clanton’s biggest hit single, “Just A
Dream,” though he was never given for credit for his participation in the
session. Others for whom he wrote material for were Fats Domino, Johnny Adams
and Willie Tee.

In 1962, Earl King once again struck the big time
with another hit song, “Trick Bag.” The number has often been labeled as the
essential New Orleans story song. It reached up to No. 17 on the Billboard
charts and has seen extended life with covers by The Meters and Robert Palmer.
He followed “Trick Bag” with yet another smash single, “Come On (Let The Good
Times Roll).” With covers of this tune recorded by the likes of Jimi Hendrix,
Stevie Ray Vaughan, Fats Domino, Lee Dorsey and Dr. John, among others, it may
have single-handedly provided a steady income through royalties.

Earl King wrote the song “Big Chief” about his
mother for a recording to help re-establish the career of Professor Longhair in
1964. Joined in the studio on guitar by his songwriting protégé Mac Rebannack,
more commonly recognized as Dr. John, King sang and whistled, perhaps the
song’s most beloved trait. Longhair had recorded the piano parts during an
earlier session, and Earl had laid tracks for the vocals and whistling as a
demo for which Longhair could repeat himself later. But the song was released
with King’s tracks intact, becoming one of the most cherished Mardi Gras
anthems of all time.

Things began to slow a bit for Earl King as the
decade came closer to an end. He recorded an album at Allen Toussaint’s
SeaSaint Studio in 1972, titled “Street Parade.” But there were complications
and the recording only saw release in the United Kingdom at the time. But once
again, King struck home with another Mardi Gras standard with the title track.

The following years saw earl King fall into
semi-retirement. He continued to write songs, but only made rare appearances on
compilation discs through much of the next fourteen years.

His career had a resurgence in 1986, though, as he
signed on with the Black Top label. That year he released an album, joined by
the New England Blues band Roomful of Blues titled “Glazed.” It featured a
cover photo taken at one of the city’s Tastee Donut shops, where King reportedly
held court as a regular customer and conducted his business from. The album was
very well-received and earned a Grammy nomination, declaring that Earl King was
back! He appeared on recordings documenting the label’s acclaimed Blues-A-Rama
shows held at Tipitina’s during the yearly extravaganza New Orleans Jazz &
Heritage Festival. Two more solo efforts, “Sexual Telepathy” (1990) and “Hard
River To Cross” (1993) featured new takes on some of his earlier classic. Both
also received critical acclaim. Earl even received a Lifetime Achievement honor
from the city’s famed Offbeat music magazine.

5 comments:

A great album, with two tracks that hendrix distorded in the bridge part for solo fantasy. Trick bag is two funny and rythmicaly impossible to forget, ever. And, like many James Brown records, the album ends with the horrible track for paying taxes, "I love you more than gold".

Glad you both liked the LP. Next to the blues I love Hendrix but I've always had a dislike to his version of Come On, maybe it didn't fit into my idea of a psychedelic guitar freak back in the late 60's.

Come on is not a good hendrix cover (not like the extended "born under a bad sign" in the blues album, for example), it is not a blues tune and it is played like a 'let's paaarty' thing. Earl King made a kind of 'lesson of life' piece out of it, with a superb sensitive voice; you can listen him feeling what he said. The black guy with the white guitar had to give to the white audience what they paid for, but many studio sessions boots revealed what he really liked to do, and there is a lot of true deep blues into it. As Arthur Big Boy Grudup said to the white talent searcher who stopped him playing 'Oh when the saints', 'Uh, you want the real stuff?"